(Complete 6/19) Need More Snacks! - a Universal/Disney Jan-Feb 2023 TR

[Araminta18]

Hello! Welcome to my trip report! My husband and I did a trip with another couple that we're friends with to Universal Studios (Trevor and my's first trip to Universal!) and to DisneyWorld (their first time at DisneyWorld!) and had a great time. I love writing trip reports because it allows me to basically relive the trip, so hopefully this is at least a little bit interesting for people are not me.

The details:
who: me and my husband Trevor and our friends Thad and Erika
when: Friday January 27th - Saturday February 4th
where: Loews' Portofino Bay (Fri Jan 27 - Sun Jan 29); Boardwalk Villas (Sun Jan 29 - Sat Feb 4)

Introductions:

So I'm Tiffany, I'll be your ghost host for this trip report. I'm 35 and while I'm a librarian by education, I currently do federal records management, since records management is where the pay is, and I gotta pay for Disney! Favorite princess is Sleeping Beauty, but I also love Mary Poppins and Beauty and the Beast and Rapunzel. Favorite ride: I can never pick just one -- Haunted Mansion, Rise of the Resistance, Tower of Terror, Guardians of the Galaxy Cosmic Rewind...I can't pick! But I also love the food and the theming -- the music and all the attention to detail just makes me happy.

My traveling companion is my husband Trevor. He's 37 and loves Star Wars, but has grown to love Disney--his favorite characters are Boba Fett, Vader and Stormtroopers, and on the non-Star Wars side, Grumpy. His favorite rides used to be Haunted Mansion and Star Tours--he doesn't really like coasters or thrill rides, but I did get him to try Big Thunder Mountain and Space Mountain and I don't know that he'd call them favorites, but he definitely likes them. The only rides he won't ride at WDW are Everest and Rockin Roller Coaster BUT IS THAT STILL TRUE AFTER THIS TRIP!? You'll have to stay tuned and see...

Also joining us on this trip was a couple that we're friends with - Thad and Erika. We've been friends with them for years, and we've done a couple trips to Busch Gardens Williamsburg with them, but Disney and Busch Gardens are very different trips. This trip came about because we were having dinner together and they brought it up that they really did want to go to Disney and that we should all go together, and I temporarily lost my mind and was like "sure that sounds like tons of fun!" They've gone to Universal before, though they stayed in Harry Potter World mostly. Their only previous experience with Disney was a day at Epcot which they enjoyed but didn't blow them away. But they've heard about our several trips so I guess we intrigued them.

I was on the hook for planning from the beginning, which is fine, cause I like planning, but Trevor and I know how it works - he gives me input when I ask, and I make sure to plan in flexibility, but he also doesn't try to second guess me or complain once we're in the moment. And I wasn't entirely sure how this dynamic would change with our friends, especially cause I kind of feel like I'm responsible to make sure everyone has a good time the whole time, 'cause I was the one who planned it. So yea. I was a bit anxious. And it didn't help when I realized like 2 weeks ahead of time that we were going to Universal during their Rock the Universe event...but at that point, what could we do?! Blargh. I took my mind off my anxiety by...planning our outfits!! We don't Disneybound, but I try to make Trevor and my's outfits match each other and the park we're going to, at least a little bit.

But finally, it was the day!!

 

[Araminta18]

Table of Contents

Friday, January 27, 2023 (part 1): Travel Day and Toothsome's Dinner!
Friday, January 27, 2023 (part 2): Riding Hagrid's! (Maybe)

Saturday, January 28, 2023 (part 1): Early Park Admission and Breakfast
Saturday, January 28, 2023 (part 2): Diagon Alley and the Worst Time to Visit CityWalk
Saturday January 28, 2023 (part 3): The Best Dinosaur Pun Ever!

Sunday, January 29, 2023 (part 1): Last Morning at Universal
Sunday, January 29, 2023 (part 2): Boardwalk Room Tour and Dinner at Wine Bar George

Monday, January 30, 2023 (part 1): Animal Kingdom Rope Drop!
Monday, January 30, 2023 (part 2): Dinner 220 miles above Earth
Monday January 30, 2023 (part 3): Who's the Prettiest Girl in School?

Tuesday, January 31, 2023 (part 1): No Snacks, Billions of Photos...what Trip Report is this?
Tuesday, January 31, 2023 (part 2): Definitely Snacks in this Update
Tuesday, January 31, 2023 (part 3): An Equal Amount of Snacks and Photo ops

Wednesday, February 1, 2023 (part 1): MK Morning and Be Our Guest lunch
Wednesday, February 1, 2023 (part 2): It's a Festival of Fantasy for the Aspirational Galactic Heros!
Wednesday, February 1, 2023 (part 3): Extended Evening Theme Park Hours!
Wednesday, February 1, 2023 (part 4): Extended Evening Theme Park Hours Continue!

Thursday, February 2, 2023 (part 1): I'm Not Cut Out to Be a Bounty Hunter!
Thursday, February 2, 2023 (part 2): Does Trevor Die?!

Friday, February 3, 2023 (part 1): How Many Cookies Does One Couple Need?
Friday, February 3, 2023 (part 2): FARTS Food and Decorations
Friday, February 3, 2023 (part 3): Trevor Gets to Ride the Best Ride at Epcot
Friday, February 3, 2023 (part 4): Lies, This is ACTUALLY the best ride in Epcot
Friday, February 3, 2023 (part 5): Our last night!

Saturday, February 4, 2023 (part 1) - Adventures in RopeDropping
Saturday February 4, 2023 (part 2) - When is 40 minutes not 40 minutes?
Saturday, February 4, 2023 (part 3) - From the Most Popular Ride to the Least
Saturday, February 4, 2023 (part 4) - Last Few Hours in the Magic Kingdom!
Saturday, February 4, 2023 (part 5) - Home Again Home Again Jiggety Jig

Haul and Wrap Up (part 1)
Haul and Wrap Up (part 2)

 

[Araminta18]

Friday, January 27, 2023 (part 1):
Travel Day and Toothsome's Dinner!​

Friday morning dawned with a very excited Tiffany. Our flight was at 1:45 pm out of Reagan National airport in DC, so we picked up Thad and Erika at about 11:15ish and headed down to the airport. I'd reserved parking ahead of time to save us like $50, and it all went super smoothly - grabbed a parking spot, waited in the cold for like 5 minutes for the shuttle to come (it was so cold and windy...made us all even more excited to get down to Florida!), and then into the airport. Thad and Erika had TSA pre-check so they breezed right on through security, while we had a little bit of a wait there at security, but not too bad. We actually had really good timing - the security line got super long right after we went through. I was hoping this would bode well for all our line experiences in the parks!

So by 12:30 we were all waiting at the gate.

I don't know if any of you have ever been to this old terminal at DCA, but it is tiny and they cram a bunch of gates in there, and it gets super loud. So as I had just recently bought some Apple Air Pods Pro...I decided to break them out and really put the noise-canceling to the test. And it was AMAZING. 100% A+ highly recommend - it was definitely nice to have all the noise reduced to practically nothing.

Soon enough we were boarding - we'd paid for early bird check in and got A54/A55. I guess the word is out about early bird check in if you're flying Southwest to Orlando - families board after the A group but before the B group so we always pay for early bird checkin so we can beat the families on board. We almost didn't make it this time! Thad and Erika had actually done the premium upgrade to get a spot in A1 through A15, so they were already settled in by the time we joined them.

We took off on time (yay!) and had (thankfully) an uneventful flight, landing on time at 4:15pm. Huzzah!

We took the faux monorail and I made us all take yet another selfie of our first ride -

And then we were waiting for our bags. It took about 30 minutes from the time we got to baggage claim for us to get our bags - that felt like a long time. But it worked out because the driver/car we'd booked (Away We Go) had texted to say he was running into traffic and expected to be there at 5:00. So we got our bags and waited about 5 minutes in the absolutely GORGEOUS Florida weather - not humid, not hot, just lovely - for him to arrive. He arrived pretty quickly and we loaded up and headed off to Universal.

We were pulling into Portofino Bay a little after 5:30 pm.

Isn't that a gorgeous view? It's a long drive up from the entrance to the front of the building but that's 'cause it winds you around this little bay and you get this lovely view! I'd scored a "Bay view" on Priceline, so it was nice to see how pretty it was from this side first.

We got dropped off and Thad and I headed over to check in.

Trevor took this picture, because we were there for literally like 15 minutes. I don't know why it took so long? But it was worth it - we were able to get rooms really close to each other and more importantly, close to the water taxi to the parks! Also, the Portofino Bay lobby has a really lovely smell.

After checking in we found ourselves a bit lost as to how to get to our room - the signage was a bit lacking. But there were lots of employees about and one of them was kind enough to come over to us (I assume we looked lost) and took us through the maze to our rooms. By 6 pm - an hour and 45 minutes after touchdown - we were exploring our fancy Bay View rooms at Portofino Bay!

Look at that view! I mean, it's not amazing, cause it's looking right down at the water taxi launch, so I guess rather, look how close we are to the water taxi!

Seriously this room has the BIGGEST bathroom I've ever been in in a hotel. I'm really bad at estimating sizes but it felt like 10 or 15 feet from the toilet to the tub. No idea why - it wasn't an accessible room. Just a huge bathroom.

Entryway.

This was room 3243, in case anyone wants to know.

We had dinner reservations at 7 pm at Citywalk, but we were hungry so we figured we'd head over early. The plan was to reconvene at 6:15 and head over to Citywalk, but then Thad and Erika texted that 6:30 would be better, and I was like "but I can see the water taxis coming and going and I want to goooooooooooooooooooo". I did not like having to wait for other people, even though it wasn't that long. This is what I meant earlier...I realize I'm not a nice person!

Anyways, we grabbed them at 6:30 and headed down to the water taxi dock. It had gotten dark in the meantime -

Even prettier at night!

We didn't have to wait long before a taxi came and we were heading to CityWalk and our dinner reservations. It was a really pleasant little boat ride, and pretty soon we were catching our first glimpse of Universal Studios!

So pretty all lit up!

Where were we heading for dinner?

Toothsome's! As you can tell, it felt pretty crowded there at CityWalk, which 100% did not bode well.

We checked in at 6:50 (about 10 minutes early) but it was absolutely insane in there. We looked in the gift shop for a bit and then were just waiting for them to call us back, which didn't happen until 7:20. Blargh, especially cause Trevor and I were going to try and duck in to Islands of Adventure and get in line for Hagrid's right before it closed, so the line hopefully wouldn't be too long. But Islands closed at 9, and we didn't think we'd need to wait 30 minutes for a dinner table!

Oh well! We were seated at last, even though it was upstairs and kind of in a corner. At the other end there were windows looking out on CityWalk, so we had a little bit of a view, and we did enjoy the decor inside the restaurant - all the steampunky vibes. But we were hungry - bring on the food!

We started with appetizers:

I got avocado bruschetta: Fresh avocado, tomato bruschetta, avocado cream, balsamic reduction, crispy fried onions, toasted crostini. This was yummy, though I would have preferred less avocado creme and more avocado slices. Still good though.

Trevor got the housemade chip nachos - Housemade chips, shredded pork, andouille sausage queso, sweet peppers. We all really liked these - the portion was bigger than Trevor expected so we all ate these. Yum.

Erika and Thad got the roasted brussel sprouts...brussel sprouts are gross so we'll just leave it at that. I'm sure these were also gross.

Then entrees!

I got the croque monsieur: Country ham, Gruyère cheese, French loaf toasted, topped with béchamel sauce, grated parmesan and fontina cheese mix. This was deliciously cheesy, but SO HOT. And I was...impatient. I should have let it cool more and tasted more than just "hot".

Trevor got chocolate shavings, chocolate chunks, raspberry chocolate ganache, whipped topping, micro mint, powdered sugar, crushed Oreos®. If you're thinking this looks more like dessert than an entree, you are correct. Trevor also arrived at this conclusion after the food came! And Trevor doesn't even have my sweet tooth - he did not come close to finishing this.

Thad got the gnocchi - Grilled chicken, sweet peppers, rapini, mole cream sauce. Thad said this was not good, and so salty it was inedible. He actually ended up sending it back.

Erika got the Forest Mushroom flatbread: Mushroom, goat cheese, caramelized onions, arugula, white truffle oil. She and Thad really liked this - I didn't try it cause mushrooms.

For desserts, we had to get their crazy milkshakes.

Trevor and I split the ChocolateX5 - Chocolate ice cream, chocolate chunks, strawberries, chocolate sauce, whipped topping, chocolate spirals. This was delicious - I just wanted more fresh strawberries to cut the richness of the chocolate. Yum.

Thad got the Key Lime Pie: Sour cream ice cream, sweet condensed milk, lime juice, lime sugar, lime garnish. He was intrigued by the sour cream ice cream, and if I'm remembering right, it didn't disappoint. Which I was grateful for, as since I was the one who picked this restaurant I felt kind of responsible for making sure we had a good time. I realize this is crazy. Welcome to my brain.

Overall though Trevor and I really enjoyed our meal, and I think Thad and Erika did as well, salty gnochhi aside. I wish we could have met Ms Toothsome and her robot, but even so, we had a good time and I would likely go back. Just probably not on a Friday night, especially when Rock the Universe is happening.

Trevor and I took advantage of Thad and Erika and left them to pay the bill and take our souvenir milkshake cup (since you get to keep it ) while we raced over to Islands of Adventure. It was 8:30 and we figured we'd have just enough time to sneak in line.

Stick around to find out if we were successful!

 

[DLo]

Popping over from your PTR. Looking forward to reading more about your adventures and food reviews .

 

[Araminta18]

Popping over from your PTR. Looking forward to reading more about your adventures and food reviews .

Welcome! Thanks for following me over here and reading along

 

[Araminta18]

Friday, January 27, 2023 (part 2):
Riding Hagrid's! (Maybe)​

I left off with us heading over to Islands of Adventure and making our way through the gates. This was our first time in the park but we weren't really looking around or anything, but were rather speedwalking through the right side of the park to get back to Hagrid's. I was slightly concerned that they'd close the line before 9 o'clock (I think I'd seen something about that online) so we were on a mission.

We speedwalked through Seuss Landing (cute!) and made our way back there, only to be told that the ride was down No!

But as we were hanging out a bit trying to decide what to do, we saw people getting in line and we saw that the ride was cycling, so I asked the employees and they clarified that they were letting people in line, so we got in line anyways? I figured that if the ride was cycling it would be reopening soon, right? Hopefully?

The line was back by Hagrid's hut and before you go into the ruins. Of course that didn't mean anything to us at that point, but knowing now... We got in line there and just didn't move for quite a while.

I did grab this nice picture of Hogwarts from the queue as we were still catching up with the line:

Pretty! From where we actually were we couldn't see the castle, but we heard several iterations of the light show happen. It was funny trying to hear it without ever having seen it. At least it passed the time!

Blurry "happy we made it!" selfie. We ended up standing there without really moving for about 20 minutes. Then we seemed to move in chunks, which I assumed was the preshow?

I liked Hagrid's hut - apparently this is the backside of the hut from the Hippogriff coaster? Hippogriff was running and it took us longer than I want to admit to figure out it was the Hippogriff and not part of Hagrid's.

After 20/25 minutes we were up here, about to head into the ruins. This theming is so neat!

I was hoping that the line seeming to move in chunks meant they were running the pre-show and we'd get to see it.

Fun indoor theming! We got to this point though and didn't move - it felt like we stayed there for 10 minutes? But checking time stamps it was only about 5 minutes? Maybe I'm getting it confused with a later ride, but either way, no movement at all when you're so excited is the worst!

As far as the pre-show, we missed it by one group. The group of people ahead of us got the pre-show, but when we got there the were just running people through the room. That was kind of a bummer, but hey - at least we were in line and the ride was running.

The queue was really neat - I liked the nests up above.

In the next room, they had dragon eggs and "graffiti" on the walls.

In that last picture, you can kind of see a gold dragon egg in the bottom right of the cabinet.

At this point the line was moving pretty steadily - no more real stops and starts, thankfully. So we made our way through the dragon hatchery and into the tunnel portion of the queue, as if you're making your way underground. In some parts the ceiling was super low - it reminded me of the catacombs in Paris! Kind of fun though, since neither Trevor nor I were that tall, nor are we claustrophobic.

After a bit we made it into what looked like Hagrid's classroom? There were posters on the walls of various magical creatures:

And then what looked like Hagrid's workbench?

There was just so much to see and look at - a great queue. I'm sure it's filled with Harry Potter easter eggs too (which I missed just cause I'm not a big Harry Potter fan).

Then we entered a bigger room with a more traditional back and forth queue. There was some kind of projection on the ceiling, that made it seem like spiders were going across the warped boards, or that Hagrid was tooling around on his motorbike. That was neat!

But pretty soon we were getting ready to board. Trevor was a bit nervous about riding, but was determined to go for it just because of all the good things we'd heard about the ride from the vloggers and such that we watch. I was nervous about fitting on the ride - I'd tried the test seat and it seemed to indicate that I'd fit on the bike (not the sidecar) but the test seats are usually at least a bit unreliable, so that wasn't a guarantee.

It's a moving walkway, which is kind of interesting for a roller coaster. But we hopped on - me on the bike and Trevor on the sidecar - and I fit, yay!! It was a bit close, but I made it. Phew!

This ride is AMAZING. I have no words. The bike/sidecar set up is so neat, and the ride itself, with the animatronics and everything - just awesome. Trevor loved it too, though you can see him gripping that restraint a bit hard in the ride picture. We ended up waiting 53 minutes, with most of that being 30 minutes of not moving at all. Totally worth it. Such a fantastic fantastic coaster.

View of the ride as you exit - so neat!

This is the one time I forgot to plan - of course I wanted to get all the ride photos but I forgot to buy their photo package ahead of time, so we ended up just buying the three day package there at the kiosk for like $40 more. Oops! Oh well. Also, fun fact - Hagrid's ride photo comes with a video of you riding, but if you ride at night, the lights are miscalibrated so it's just a video of darkness. HA. I'm including the video just cause I thought it was hilarious.

We were off the ride and with our pictures at 9:45. Not too bad!

Commemorating the occasion! Definitely a great way to start our experience at the parks.

We slowly made our way out of the park - I wanted to walk around the other side (the side of the park we hadn't yet seen) but since the park was closed they only had one way open and it was the same way we'd come in. Oh well. Once out and into CityWalk, we decided to make one more stop before heading back to the hotel.

Citywalk was crazy crowded - Friday night, and both parks closed? I guess we should have expected it. But we wanted to stop at Voodoo Donuts and get some donuts for breakfast the next day! We got there, only to see a long line, but they had a sign out for mobile order - huzzah! We did that and looked around in the Universal Studios shop for a bit while we waited, but we didn't have to wait long.

I don't remember all the names of these, but the one in the upper right was a donut with oreos on it, then the bottom right was a chocolate cake donut with chocolate chips and frosting. Bottom left was m&ms, and then the upper left had raspberry flavoring/sprinkles on it.

We headed to the boat with our sweets. We didn't have to wait hardly at all, and it turned out to be the same boat captain as the one who had taken us to Citywalk earlier. Nice bit of symmetry.

View of the globe from the dock.

We made it back to the hotel at about 10:40 - elevator donut selfie!

We were only one floor up from the water taxi but we couldn't find the stairs up, even though we always took the stairs down. I realize that doesn't make any sense. I blame all the sugar.

Then it was just unpacking and getting settled. Trevor and I were definitely ropedropping Islands of Adventure the next morning to try and ride Hagrid's again, but in the daytime, so we needed to get our rest!

Fun with Metrics:
Steps walked: 8178 steps (3.6 miles)
Ride count: 1 (Hagrid's!)

 

[Counting Stars]

What a great start! Your room and view are really beautiful! And you managed to get on Hagrid's! Such a good first day- Thanks for sharing.

 

[disneyAndi14]

Joining in!
Great travel day.
We usually always stay at Portofino Bay and really like it.
Hagrid’s ride is amazing! I’m like Trevor and a bit nervous with coasters and really proud I rode this several times with my daughter!
I always ride in the side car, I think it is a little less intense?
Looking forward to your report!

 

[MamaMouse0920]

Following along! I too am the exact same way with the whole "I planned this trip so everyone's happiness falls on my shoulders", and have decided I much prefer traveling with just my family

 

[Araminta18]

What a great start! Your room and view are really beautiful! And you managed to get on Hagrid's! Such a good first day- Thanks for sharing.

Welcome! Thanks for reading! We were so excited to get on Hagrid’s - definitely a great first day!

Joining in!
Great travel day.
We usually always stay at Portofino Bay and really like it.
Hagrid’s ride is amazing! I’m like Trevor and a bit nervous with coasters and really proud I rode this several times with my daughter!
I always ride in the side car, I think it is a little less intense?
Looking forward to your report!

Welcome! Thanks for reading!
Yea, we’re definitely fans of Portofino Bay now. also yay! So glad you were able to enjoy Hagrid’s! Trevor was definitely getting nervous when we got closer but having the sidecar option I think really helped.

Following along! I too am the exact same way with the whole "I planned this trip so everyone's happiness falls on my shoulders", and have decided I much prefer traveling with just my family

Welcome! Thanks for reading! Glad I’m not the only one with that particular brand of anxiety it was lots of fun but it is definitely less worry for me when it’s just me and Trevor-totally with you!

 

[Araminta18]

Saturday, January 28, 2023 (part 1):
Early Park Admission and Breakfast​

Our first day at Universal! Trevor and I were planning to rope drop Hagrid's; Thad and Erika were not planning to rope Hagrid's so we were on our own this morning. The plan was that we'd meet up with them whenever they got to the park.

With Hagrid's we knew we needed to be near the front of the crowd, and with the extra hour for resort guests starting at 8 am, I was thinking we needed to be there at about 7 am. That was the plan at least. I'd woken up at 5:15ish (gotta love theme park excitement ), so when the alarm went off at 6:15, I was awake and ready! Trevor was not as awake. We were a bit slower than I'd planned, so we were walking out the door at like 6:55. The original thought was to walk over, cause I didn't think the boats would be running that early, but they were! So we called an audible and got on the boat instead. There'd be enough walking later. Trevor was wearing his "Six" (the Broadway musical) hat, and the people behind us on the boat complimented him on it - "Six" is awesome, just FYI.

We got to City Walk at 7:10 am, and then it was speedwalking from the Portofino Bay stop (which is literally the farthest one from Islands of Adventure) over to Islands. When we got there every gate had about 6 or 7 people at it, which wasn't bad. We decided to go for the far left, cause the way Islands is set up it funnels you to the middle gates and it's not really easy to see that you can go to the sides.

This was our first gate, but then the guy right behind Trevor had 4 people join him, so we broke left to the absolute furthest left turnstile.

View at 7:19 am of the crowds at the turnstiles.

The group in front of us.

The other nice thing of being at the far end is that we could sit on some of the rock formations there without getting really out of line.

Well, not too far out of line. See Trevor holding our spot, as I took this picture from said rock formations where I was sitting. The time stamp on this one was 7:36 am (if anyone else is looking to plan their own rope drop strategy).

They opened up at 7:45 am (a bit early, yay!), and despite being behind people who didn't seem to know how to scan their tickets and then scan their fingers (this was just one of the first examples where Tiffany picked the wrong line...maybe that's what I should have titled my report on the Dis - don't let Tiffany pick the line!), we were inside pretty quick and speedwalking back to Hagrid's with the rest of the crowd. Some people were full on running...not gonna lie we thought about it but 1. against the rules and 2. I'm too old and out of shape to run! It was funny to see us kind of passing and then falling behind and then passing the same people as we headed back there (cause it's way far back there). They clearly had the extended queue out and ready so we had to walk through there but we were still nearish enough the front that we didn't ever have to stop, we just walked through the queue.

View of the ruins from the queue during the day! It's so neat.

It's still a long queue, but nice to never have to stop. They weren't running the pre-show yet, which was nice from a "get on the ride" point of view but we were a little disappointed to not get to see it (again). When we got to the ride itself, Trevor decided that he wanted to try riding the bike! We weren't sure if they'd let us both ride the bikes but they did - sweet!

I liked riding it in the day and seeing some of the details that I'd missed in the dark on our ride last night. Such a good ride, honestly.

And you can actually see us in the ride video! Amazing. Trevor liked the bike better than the sidecar, though he did say it was a bit more terrifying on the sidecar. I think he meant "awesome".

Anyways, we were off the ride at 8:10 am and the plan was to head over to Velocicoaster and get on that!

View of Hagrid's from the exit queue - so neat!

We passed Hogsmeade as we were heading over to Velocicoaster - that's the Hagrid's line there. We still saw people heading to get in the Hagrid's line at this point and just...no. It's hours at this point - try something else cause you're just waiting those early hours in line!

The closer we got to Velocicoaster, the more nervous Trevor was getting. This would be by far the most exciting coaster he'd ever done. I think the most intense coaster he'd ever done up to this point was Incredicoaster at Disney California Adventure. I was just getting excited (and hoping I would fit ).

I love how as you walk to the ride under this raptor cage the coaster goes overtop.

Who knew Hogwarts was in the Jurassic World universe?!

We got there and I tried the test seat quickly and got the green (yay!) so we hopped in line (at 8:14 am). We timed it well - right as we got in line, a bunch of people got in line behind us.

Pic with the raptor statue! That's Trevor's "I'm excited but also crazy nervous" face.

Also the lighting changes in this room are fun. It was blue when we took the selfie and then turned red. Makes the raptors all scary.

The queue has some screens and such for videos, but I liked this ride logo at the end of the video so I took the picture.

In that room with the screens they have some fun props - including Dr Grant's book!

Selfie with the raptors in their cages!

I loved the effect where the ride goes past the queue and then raptors chase it. You can't see that on the ride, but it's fun to watch from the queue.

Some queue video.

We waited 11 minutes to get to this point (which wasn't bad at all) and then we were into the locker room. After we put the stuff in the locker we headed upstairs where they have more line, but with a video where Claire from the movies is like "you can ride a coaster through the velociraptor compound!" and Chris Pratt's character is like "this is insane you should all leave you're going to die why is this even a thing". It's really funny.

Trevor was getting really nervous so we decided not to wait for the front row and instead just went for the regular line. Also shout out to the Universal team members because they were moving the ride - people were loading super fast and it was cycling just bonkers bonkers fast. A+.

Trevor was not pleased that there was only a lap bar, and not an over the shoulder restraint. I was just pleased that I fit on the actual ride. Guys, it's AMAZING. So intense, so thrilling - so smooth! I loved it. Absolutely loved it. Trevor liked it, but was also terrified. When we got off the ride his smartwatch was saying that his heart rate was 140. But he did it! Honestly, that's an awesome coaster morning: Hagrid's then Velocicoaster.

We thought about trying to go back and ride Velocicoaster again (well I did - Trevor was like "I need several hours to recover, please and thank you"), but the wait time had already jumped a bunch. It was 8:38 and I could already tell that the crowds were higher than I'd been seeing on the app in the preceding few days, because when I'd spot checked over the last week Velocicoaster stayed under 15 min for all of the extra hour for resort guests, but this morning when we got off it was already posting like 45min/60 mins. Oh well.

We decided to go back to Hogsmeade and ride Forbidden Journey, cause the line was short. We'd ridden it in Universal Studios Hollywood, but figured why not ride it again.

Had to take a bunch of pictures of Trevor in the queue.

Yea, he's still recovering a bit from Velocicoaster.

Dumbledore's office!

One day I will get a non-blurry picture of Trevor with the sorting hat...but not this trip!

Blurry selfie!

The ride was fun - this is the one ride that I've ever ridden that makes me a little bit motion sick. Those screens desperately need updating. But the physical themeing parts are awesome. Just those screens - blech.

ALSO GUESS WHO DID NOT REALIZE THAT THIS HAS AN ON RIDE PHOTO!? They don't have an on-ride photo at Universal Hollywood so we didn't even think to check here. Discovered the next day that there's an on-ride photo. Oh well.

Such a cool castle.

It took us 19 minutes to go through the queue, ride the ride, and get off - not too bad! At this point it was 9:05ish, so we decided to try and ride Flight of the Hippogriff with our express passes, cause why not. But the express pass line was super long - like dozens of people longer than the standby line. So we bailed. It was just going to be a filler ride anyways since we'd ridden this in Universal Hollywood, so when it had been like 4 minutes and we hadn't moved at all, we were like "nah". And bailed.

At this point Thad and Erika had texted that they were on their way so we made plans to meet up at the Three Broomsticks there in Hogsmeade for breakfast. We walked around a bit but then saw that there was quite a long line for Three Broomsticks, so we figured hey, we'd get in line and then Thad and Erika could join us! But then at 9:30 they texted that they were in Universal Studios (not Islands of Adventure) so we were like uh ok, we'll head over to you. We had some miscommunications this morning for sure - we were about to get on the Hogwarts Express coming to them when they texted that they were in line for Hogwarts Express to come to Islands of Adventure but luckily we stopped them getting on and finally met up with them in Diagon Alley.

We immediately headed to Leaky Cauldron to get breakfast. Cause we were hungry!! There was a bit of a line, cause of course there was. But that view was neat.

I managed to get a video of the dragon breathing fire.

And just some Diagon Alley ambiance.

It took us about 20 minutes to order.

I did like this theming though--I wanna eat up there!

The eponymous Leaky Cauldron!

We got milk (that's me ) and then Trevor got the Otter's Fizzy Orange Juice: Effervescent fresh orange beverage with notes of vanilla and cinnamon. Basically orange soda with cinnamon and vanilla around the rim. This was good.

Thad and Erika got their meals pretty quickly, but for whatever reason, our meals took forever to come out. They use the rfid tags to bring the food to your table, and I guess something had gone wrong, because we had to ask like three team members for our meals and by the time it came Thad and Erika were long finished with their food. By the time it did come, we were so hungry I forgot to take a picture! Oops. But I got the Traditional Breakfast: Fresh scrambled eggs, sausage links, black pudding, English bacon, baked beans, grilled tomato, sautéed mushrooms and breakfast potatoes. I wanted the baked beans - my dad lived in England for a bit during college and he liked having beans with breakfast but to get me and my siblings to eat it, he called it "cowboy breakfast". So yea, I wanted "cowboy breakfast" this morning. It was good! Not like amazing, but it worked and filled me up. Trevor got the American Breakfast: Fresh scrambled eggs, breakfast potatoes, crisp bacon, and link sausage with butter croissant. FYSA - our bacon is way better than English bacon.

We finished up at about 10:45ish - what to do next?!

 

[DisneyyDaydream]

The ride was fun - this is the one ride that I've ever ridden that makes me a little bit motion sick.

Me too! Except now I add Remy’s to this list as well

 

[footballmouse]

 

[Araminta18]

Me too! Except now I add Remy’s to this list as well

oh no! I'm ok with Remy's - i'm sorry that one bothers you! no fun

 

[Araminta18]

Saturday, January 28, 2023 (part 2):
Diagon Alley and the Worst Time to Visit CityWalk​

What next? Explore Diagon Alley! Again, I'm not a huge Harry Potter fan but the theming here was fantastic, and unlike Hogsmeade which was pretty similar to what we'd seen at Universal Studios Hollywood, this was totally brand new.

We poked around in the shops, just enjoying the theming. I ended up getting no-melt ice cream (frosting!).

The toy store there (don't remember the name, but the one Fred and George Weasley open up) was awesome. So many fun things going on in the displays, though we didn't end up buying anything (besides the "no melt ice cream").

After we kind of finished browsing and headed out into the square, we realized we were about 5 minutes from one of the shows: the Tales of Beedle the Bard. So of course we had to wait for that. The crowds weren't super heavy (yet), so we had no trouble getting a good spot. And while we were waiting, again, just look at the theming.

I love the hanging suit of armor there in that building in the back. And you can't really read them in this photo, but all the buildings had these ads kind of just painted on, including one for a broom with multiple seats and another one for getting your own house elf.

But then it was time for the show!

It was really good - funny, but also great puppetry and and a couple cool effects. Definitely recommend!

The next show was going to be Celestina Warbeck in about half an hour, so Thad and Erika decided to hang out there and Trevor and I explored around a bit more. There was no line for the Gringott's money exchange, so there we went.

I didn't realize that the animatronic up there was one you could actually interact with! He was asking if anyone had any questions but I didn't realize til the end when someone came in and answered him back that again, you could actually talk to him! Oh well. Still neat. We also got a cool souvenir - you can buy a "gift card" that is in the form of galleons.

Then back to the show, and this time I lost all my pride and just sat down on the ground right there. Had a little bit of fun with selfies.

Another neat show - don't sleep on Diagon Alley guys, it's awesome.

After the show, it was time to ride Gringotts! The line was posted pretty long but we had express pass...would that help?

You walk right into the bank, and it's jaw-dropping. So freaking cool.

Selfies with the goblins!

I really loved how they made it seem like you were going into the vaults - we passed this pretty cool spiral staircase.

Look at all that gold!

This was about where we caught up with the line, though thankfully it did keep moving pretty good. We got to see all the newspapers and then it was time to get into the elevator and go down 9 miles!

There's a cool pre-show in the elevator, and then you exit the elevator and you climb this overlapping spiral staircase, which was really neat to see.

We ended up waiting 17 minutes in line, which wasn't too bad at all - there's enough interesting things to look at in the queue that it worked.

Selfie! I can't remember if this is before or after the ride...also look at poor sleepy Trevor.

The ride was really fun! You travel through the vaults and run from Voldemort and Bellatrix...pretty neat. My only concern is that it is a lot of screens and the screens are a bit old and the movement was (to me) perfectly synchronized, but still lots of fun.

And you get dumped into this awesome shop:

We didn't buy anything, but how cool is that theming!

We really spent a bunch more time wandering around, looking in the shops at all the theming, though again, we didn't really end up buying much.

Definitely getting a bit more crowded! It was about 12:30 pm at this point.

We caught up with Thad and Erika in the clothing store, where they ended up buying robes and a bunch more things. Trevor and I didn't end up buying anything, but Trevor did try a robe on...

Looking pretty good! If you're curious, he is 100% a hufflepuff, and like the huffliest-hufflepuff you'll ever meet.

They even had cool theming in here - look at this dress!

We were all getting a bit tired and hungry at this point, so we were ready to head out and get food and go back to the hotel and rest a bit, but I wanted to look around Knockturn Alley really quickly. It was *so dark* in there! Quite the contrast to the sunny outside. But once eyes adjusted, again - really neat theming.

I loved this little staircase to nowhere, with a wanted poster on the side.

We all headed outside of Diagon Alley into the London area of the park, intending to make our way out of the park. But....we got distracted a little bit. We found the Knight Bus!

Beds inside.

We even got to meet the conductor and the shrunken head.

And picture.

Dunno what this building is supposed to be but it's pretty! Both Erika and I wanted it. As you do, you know?

And we of course had to take some pics at Grimmauld place, specifically number 12.

We even got to see Kreacher peeking out!

So cool (I know, you're super impressed with my descriptive skills today. )

From here we slowly meandered out of the park, with one last stop being at the newly reopened Mummy! I, like most of the internet, love Brendan Fraser as well as the Mummy, so we of course had to ride this. The line was *bonkers* long though. Even with express pass.

The line there to the right is the express pass line. They were using so many switchbacks in the queue that I had that experience where you're like "oh i just have to go around that corner!" and then you get there and there's a whole other room with switchbacks...worst feeling ever. We ended up waiting half an hour in the express line. I heard the employee at the merge point say that they were doing a 3 to 1 ratio of express to standby: 100 express and then 33 standby. Rough.

Trevor and I are in the back row on the right side. Despite the wait, we had a great ride - it's so fun! Lots of creepy stuff and there's a fakeout in the ride which is awesome. Also fire!!

Ok now for reals we headed out of the park and into CityWalk for food.

Hello globe!

Going into CityWalk at 1:45ish on a Saturday when they have an event going on...not our brightest move! It was SO crowded - people everywhere, and no places that took reservations had openings. That's on me...and I felt bad that I hadn't made us any reservations or anything. Oh well. We tried to find an open place without a long wait, and after several false starts, we ended up at red oven pizza bakery because it was basically quick service. We did have to stalk a table for a little bit...there was space on a bench nearby and we saw a family finishing up so we did the whole "hey, when you're done can we have your table? of course!" thing. But we were hungry enough at that point we didn't care. As we were looking at the menu there wasn't really anything that super appealed to me, so we ordered pizzas and salads for Thad and Erika and Trevor, and I decided to run to the upper story area of CityWalk and try my luck at Panda express. The line for Panda was insane out the door, but they had a sign touting mobile order, so I placed an online order and had my food in hand within 3 minutes, while the people in front of me in line hadn't moved more than one or two people. I felt a little bad...but also not really.

Panda! I took the food back down to where Thad and Erika and Trevor were, and best part? They hadn't gotten their food yet.

We were definitely flagging pretty hard...

Trevor especially was really tired, poor guy. I was doing ok, though at this point I was the only one who had eaten, 'cause I'm a philistine and didn't wait to eat my food. It probably took a solid 25 minutes to get the food? Trevor got a meatlovers pizza, and Thad and Erika got a margharita pizza and then an arugula salad and a chicken ceasar. The food was really good, per them. I'm really picky about my pizza so it wasn't my favorite, but I'm glad they enjoyed it. Trevor perked up a lot after eating - he didn't look quite so tired afterwards! Also I forgot to take pictures...oops.

We did have a funny little mishap near the end that made us all laugh - one of the drinks got knocked over and made the pizza a little bit soggy and orange-soda flavored, but I knew we were all punchy 'cause we were just laughing a ton. And that's how you know you're in good company - able to laugh at mishaps!

After lunch, we stopped by the Universal store there for Thad and Erika to pick up the clothing they'd bought earlier in Diagon Alley - they'd had them personalized so they had to pick them up in the store in Citywalk. While they were doing that, Trevor found several things he was interested in:

Hufflepuff jacket

Deathly Hallows shirt! We saw this one in Diagon Alley but Trevor was too tired to decide if he wanted it or not, but after sitting down for a bit and eating some food, when we ducked in here he decided he wanted it after all. He wears it to work - it's subtle enough but still nerdy.

And by buying the shirt and the jacket we were getting close to $150, so we decided to take advantage of the deal they were offering, where if you buy $300 of universal merchandise gift cards, you get a free (non-interactive) wand. They had a choice of like 6 - I don't remember what all they were (one had a slug on the end? professor Slughorn's, maybe?), but Trevor decided he liked Ginny's best. So he got that.

At this point, we had no more stops, so Trevor and Thad and Erika headed back to the hotel, and I decided that since I wasn't feeling super sleepy, I would take advantage and uber to the Disney outlet for shopping at cheap prices! Well...cheaper. So I headed towards the parking garages, which was the designated rideshare pick up. On the way, I got to see the Universal sign!

Not the best view, but kind of neat!

At the outlet, there was no line to get in, which was a nice change from a few years ago. I ended up buying several things, including Tower of Terror ears for $8(!!!), a star wars spirit jersey for Trevor that he'd seen in Disneyland Paris but decided not to get at full price, Marvel Christmas pajama pants for me, a couple pins, and then my favorite, a Rescuers Dooney and Burke bag which I *love*. And I paid for it all with a gift card, so it was like free, right? LOL

I got back to the hotel around 5 pm...what next?!

 

[Araminta18]

Saturday January 28, 2023 (part 3):
The Best Dinosaur Pun Ever!​

With me back and having dropped my stuff off in the room (after showing Trevor my haul a bit), we texted with Thad and Erika and got ready to head back into the park. Our main goal was to see the light show on Hogwarts; me and Trevor had a side goal to ride Hagrid's again.

When we met up with Thad and Erika at the water taxi, they were all decked out:

Oh I forgot Trevor had decided to wear his hufflepuff jacket--they really were all decked out.

Portofino Bay really is gorgeous. And I love the water taxi view as you come up to CityWalk. We got there pretty quick and as we headed over to Islands, I took advantage to get a slightly better shot of Toothsome's.

Trevor also mentioned that he wanted a picture with the lighthouse so this was the first of several attempts to get a decent shot.

Not too bad, except for the people. I also tried that instagram/tiktok hack where for tall things you set your phone to panorama and move it upward - it does not work, don't try it. Tiktok lies. #notbitter

We scanned in and in a delightfully weird turn of events, they had photographers there out front? To take pictures? Seemed pretty random to me but hey, why not.

We even got Thad and Erika to take a picture this time. Also props to Universal for putting the date stamp in the corner - I approve.

From there, back we headed to Hogwarts! It was bonkers crowded. 0 out of 10, do not recommend. But we just let ourselves be moved with the crowd and made it to this spot for the show - not too bad.

I was a little scared - this is not a big area and there were lots of people there. You think they'd herd them somewhere else to watch it, or something...anything so like we don't all die if someone starts a panic. But whatever, we made it.

The show is cute - just the sorting hat going through the house options, but some fun projections and lights. We liked it.

Afterwards, we were a bit at loose ends. It was 6:45, the park closed at 9, and we wanted to ride Hagrid's again but the wait time was still insane so we didn't want to get in line now, but rather get in line later when it was closer to close. Trevor decided he wanted to see the Jurassic Park activity center, so we split with Thad and Erika - they stayed in Hogsmeade and we headed over to Jurassic Park area. We finally discovered/remembered to use the bridge right there that has a great view of the castle, and discovered that we should have watched the show from there!

Selfies in lieu of the show.

We also got to see that Jurassic Park sign at night - I tried taking pictures but the lighting wasn't great so they didn't turn out. Trevor was just having fun cause they had fire/torches on the side of the sign. He's easily amused. We also found an awesome photo op, with the Jurassic Park jeep!

So it's not a great shot at night, but it's fully automated (you scan your photo thing and then you have like 5 seconds to get into the square, and then it takes the pic) so that was pretty neat.

From here, we ended into the Discovery Center, where we/I found the best dinosaur pun EVER. At first we spent a good amount of time in the gift shop, cause that's who we are. Well, me. Trevor ended up buying some magnets and a cool BioSyn waterbottle - he was dithering a bit so I was just like "buy all the things!" Then we went downstairs and Trevor was like "ooh lookit all the cool exhibit activity things!" and I was like "ooh lookit that nice comfy bench" so I sat down and he went off exploring.

Some of it was pretty neat looking.

But really, the absolute best part was this game show you could play where it asked you questions about dinosaurs. Not because of the game, but because of the title of the game. You ready?

My family and I are big Muppet Treasure Island fans, and when I saw this sign - this bit of the movie ran through my head.

That's what I thought when I saw this - "I thought this was supposed to be a kids activity area!!" Literally still laughing at this. LOL

Ok, back to your regularly scheduled mature trip reporting. After Trevor finished looking around, we went back to Hogsmeade, by way of the front of Velocicoaster.

This is Trevor being a velociraptor. Had to commemorate Trevor successfully riding it! Also I told Trevor to pose and he started making interesting poses so I decided to go with a video first

Trevor cracks me up.

Selfie together.

Then we headed back into Hogsmeade by way of the front entrance, to meet up with Thad and Erika. And we ran into the Hogwarts Express conductor!

We had a fun little chat with him - and you can tell 'cause that's one of Trevor's rare real smiles in the picture.

We found Thad and Erika - they'd done the wand show at Ollivanders and then spent a bunch of time picking out their perfect wands, and now it was time for interactive wand spots! Those wand spots are just a bit picky - I had the touch for a little bit but then it let me down. But we had fun wandering around.

I also got to use the restroom and hear Moaning Myrtle in the bathroom, which made me laugh.

At that point Thad and Erika were tired and ready to head back to the hotel, so we said good night to them and Trevor and I got in line for Hagrid's. The line was definitely longer than the night before - it was outside the queue a bit but we were hoping it would move pretty regularly. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

We got a pretty good view of the castle from the queue at one point.

and even got to see a glimpse of the show from the queue!

The ruins!

We made it to this point (right as we were about to enter the ruins - a little bit before the pre-show) at 8:48. 45 minutes to get to this point.

It felt like the ride must have gone down or something, but it was not moving quickly at all. It felt like we were stopped a ton, and moving not as regularly as you would think. We were waiting at hte part where you go into the preshow for I swear like 15 minutes. Not sure why, but we absolutely waited forever. But on the bright side, we actually did get to see the pre-show- huzzah!

I didn't realize the show had water and air effects, so that was cool. And it helped explain why there is a train full of Hagrid's motorbikes. Then back into the line...we ended up right in front of a group of unchaperoned teens (and seeming pre-teens? maybe I just can't judge ages anymore 'cause I'm old). There were a lot of unchaperoned kids - I guess that's what happens when it's Rock the Universe weekend. (reminder yet again to skip this weekend no matter what).

At least this room has great theming! I missed this dragon art before.

Once we got into the tunnels/cave area of the queue, the kids behind us really got on my nerves. I have no problems with kids being excited and loud, but they were excessively loud--like high-pitched screaming just to scream. I realize this probably sounds like

but like dude - it was ridiculous. Blargh.

Eventually - finally - we made it on the ride! We waited 95 minutes...blargh. But the ride was totally worth it. Trevor wanted to try riding the bike again, and we ended up in the first and second rows!

Can you see Trevor basically being "vroom!" back there?

The ride was a little backed up at the exit so I got a picture of the unicorn!

Yes, you do need more selfies of us on the ride, cause it's awesome.

I would put in the ride video, but it's just black again (seriously that's still hilarious to me), so ride pics instead!

Still didn't manage to figure out where the photo was. Oh well!

We got off the ride at 9:45, and of course the park was closed, so we meandered out. Trevor and I were both pretty hungry at this point, so we decided to head over to Antojitos for a (very) late dinner. I'd actually made a reservation (having learned my lesson at lunch!!) but I had to keep pushing it back as the Hagrid's line got slower and then I pushed it back too far, but turned out we didn't actually need it. We checked in, sat down for like 3 minutes (see Trevor's sprawl below), and then they called us back to our table.

We'd asked for the outside seats but they'd just closed the patio (cause again, late), so that was a bummer. But still, food! We ordered the tableside guacamole, and then a quesadilla for me and taquitos for Trevor, thinking we'd eat the guacamole as the appetizer. Instead, it took 25 minutes to get the guacamole so by that time we'd eaten a whole bowlful of chips...and then the other dishes came out right after! So the pacing wasn't great, but the tableside guacamole was amazing.

It had garlic, and a lot of garlic - I loved it. It was absolutely delicious. #yum If we had known, we wouldn't have ordered the other dishes. Cause by the time they came, we were already full.

My quesadilla, which was also huge. I only ate about half of this. They were good, but that tableside guacamole was better and I definitely filled up on that.

Trevor liked his taquitos - it was an appetizer portion so I think he did manage to eat it all. Overall, a positive experience, but man that tableside guacamole was definitely the star.

We left a little bit after 11 pm, and headed back to the boat dock, where we had a bit of a wait - about 10 minutes? I think this is like the only time we had any real wait for the boats, which was nice. But we also shared with Hard Rock, which was a bit disappointing. Like not a big deal, but you know - we just wanted to go back to the hotel and sleep!

Tomorrow was our last day at Universal, a few hours at Sesame Street, and then transferring to Disney!!!

Fun with Metrics:
Steps walked: 22058 steps (9.7 miles)
Ride count: 6 (Hagrid's x2, Velocicoaster, Forbidden Journey, Hogwarts Express, Gringotts)

 

[Araminta18]

Sunday, Jan 29, 2023 (part 1):
Last Morning at Universal​

Our last Universal day! I'll admit it...while I was a bit disappointed that we didn't get to fully explore Universal as much as I would have liked, I was not sad to be heading to Disney. What can I say - I'm a Disney gal at heart.

However, we weren't going to waste our last extra morning hour! We slept in a little bit, because we weren't going to try and rope drop Hagrid's - our plan was to rope drop Velocicoaster and I was vaguely remembering that Velocicoaster had less than 15 min waits all during that extra hour (foreshadowing). When we got up, we packed all our stuff and dragged it back to the lobby and dropped it at Bell Services. I thought it was interesting that rather than give us a paper tag, they just had us take a picture of it? To show them later? Just slightly odd.

Anyways, we dropped the bags and walked outside to catch the water taxi.

So pretty and deserted this morning!

We were on the water taxi at 7:41 - didn't have to wait long at all!

We got to Islands of Adventure and the lines were crazy long -

This is really badly designed for rope drop - there's a bunch of lines so you fan out at the entrance but then it narrows, like a funnel. Not great.

They opened up right on time and we enjoyed being part of the mob making our way in.

We got to this point at 8:10 am, and I was starting to think that my "less than 15 min wait" guess was going to be wrong - there were a lot of people heading this way.

And we found the line - they weren't using all the switchbacks in the queue yet, and it was posted at 25 minutes. It almost seemed like they weren't quite expecting the crowds either.

It wasn't a 25 minute wait, thankfully - maybe about 15? Not bad.

Trevor was nervous but went on it one more time.

As we got off, I wanted to get back in line and ride again, hoping it would be another 15 min wait or so. Trevor was debating whether or not to ride again, and so while he was thinking, he hopped in line with me. Right as we got in line, they started opening yet more switchbacks, and we got to see that part of the queue that goes down by the water and has the coaster go right over your head. So that was kind of nice? It is a pretty neat view.

Trevor eventually decided nah, not gonna ride again, but instead while I was riding he'd go explore the superhero part of Islands of Adventure that we hadn't been to.

The line was moving pretty steadily for me, which was nice.

But yea, definitely more crowded.

Took about 25 minutes to get to this part of the queue with the raptors, which is right before the lockers. So, longer than I wanted but still not too bad, considering.

I ended up waiting a bit to do the front row - my total wait time was 46 minutes, but that probably would have been 30/35 min if I didn't wait for the front row. It was awesome in the front row, even though I forgot to take off my mask. Trevor would have hated it, but man - awesome awesome ride. Also again, shout out to the workers - they were moving cars through SUPER fast.

Trevor said he would wander and then I should text him and then he'd come back and see if he could film me on the ride. But once I enter the rooms before the locker I lost reception so wasn't able to text him. Oh well! Had a great time anyways. I got off the ride a little before 9:30 am. Definitely not the walkon rides I was hoping, but still fun. Glad we did it.

So while I was waiting in line for Velocicoaster, Trevor was heading over to the superhero area. He said he had fun exploring - he didn't tell me much of what he was doing but I'm piecing it together from the pictures and videos he took. He found the DoomNet phone:

And he found an arcade and took a picture for me, cause I love skeeball.

A lot.

He didn't ride any rides, but he had fun looking around.

When I got done with Velocicoaster, I headed over to Hogsmeade, and texted Trevor where I was and he started making his way back to me. I looked a bit in the Forbidden Journey gift shop, where I discovered this Forbidden Journey has a ride photo and we didn't know, so that's where I figured it out. And I did ask the Universal folks via email and they said they couldn't give me the photo cause it had been too long. Oh well. Afterwards, I was just sitting on the ledge outside of Hagrid's people watching - I thought about trying to get in the single rider line, but I didn't realize that for single rider you had to wait in the regular line until it got to the part where the single riders can split off. And the line was bonkers long, as you might expect, so I was like "meh, not doing that". Trevor, because he's awesome, showed up with an icee for me - I wanted an icee the night before but all the shops were closed, and Trevor is amazing so he brought me one this morning when he saw an open stand. It was a strawberry icee because their cherry icee machine wasn't working, but still - A+ for Trevor. Icees are a great snack.

We then hopped on the Hogwart's express to go over to Universal Studios for one purpose and one purpose only: go through the regular Hogwarts Express line so we could go through Platform 9 3/4s!

Thankfully the standby line was still really short, so we were just walking through the queue.

Cute theming! I love these old luggage carts and those adorable bags. I want fancy luggage like that. Probably not but they look so cool!

Then we found our goal!

It was a bit crowded here - I can't imagine how it is later in the day. But it worked for us for now, and I got the shot of Trevor. Now, back to Islands of Adventure to meet up with Thad and Erika and to watch the shows over in Hogsmeade.

Again, love this theming! This is going to be a Hogwarts Express appreciation post, just FYI.

Ok, that concludes this part of your trip report.

We made it back to Hogsmeade a little bit before 10:30 am, and met up with Thad and Erika. They were enjoying some people watching too, and then we all went over to the stage to watch the shows! That was our last thing we wanted to do before leaving, and the timing worked out great, since the show started at 10:30. And it wasn't even very crowded, so that was nice. It was a bit bright/sunny/hot though - made me glad we were doing this in the morning and not later!

First up was the frog choir:

The frogs are neat! And afterwards they did pictures - after their line emptied they still had a little bit of time so Trevor jumped in.

Then we were just waiting around for the 11 am show of the BeauxBatons and Durmstrang dancers and talking with Thad and Erika. I gave up and sat down on the ground in the shade of something or other (it may have been in Trevor's shade, actually. ), cause I have no shame at all in theme parks.

At 11 am, the next show started, with the dancers from BeauxBatons and DurmStrang. This was the show Trevor and I had seen at Universal Hollywood, so I wasn't paying super much attention.

See what I mean about it not being crowded? It filled in a little bit once the show got going but not very much! That was nice.

Again, they were taking pictures but we just kind of did a covert photo of Trevor with them - if you waited in line you could actually stand next to the Durmstrang guys.

With that, we were ready to head out of the park and over to Sesame Street/Place/whatever. We decided to meander out by way of the opposite way (the non-Seuss Landing way) so we could look around. We found the Jurassic Park sign again!

Watch out Trevor there's a dinosaur behind you!

We/I found an open stand with cherry icees- yay!

#noshame

Trevor thought about riding SpiderMan but decided he didn't care all that much. Honestly this area was fun to walk through - both the superhero area and the oldschool comics area. I was flagging a bit (not quite sure why) but if I hadn't been and if we hadn't been leaving it would have been fun to explore a bit more. I used to go to thriftstores and get the small books of comic strips (like Tumbleweeds and Wizard of Id and others) and so it was fun to see some of those represented in that area.

We ducked into the shop right at the entrance there to use up our Universal merch gift card with some treats for our offices - we told the cashier we were trying to use it up and he was like "uh, you have a lot left" and I was like "wait, how is that possible?! I thought I did the math!" and then we looked at the receipt and it had like 80 cents left on it. Soooooooooo funny ;D

While Thad and Erika were looking around, we saw another photographer in that same front of the park area and got some daytime pics.

Trevor said he wanted a pic with the lighthouse - he's gonna get a pic with the lighthouse.

I think this was probably the best shot of him with the lighthouse. Also, fun fact - Thad and Erika never did figure out how to get into Islands from the front, I don't think.

At this point we talked about our plans, and Thad decided that he was ok with passing on Sesame Place. He was the one who wanted to go, so the rest of us were ok with skipping it. I did feel a little bit bad, since if it hadn't been so crowded at Universal we probably would have done it all in one day and then today we could have just done Sesame Place today, but *shrugs*. It is what it is.

So the plan was to get lunch at Citywalk, then back to the hotel for our stuff and then over to Disney. (yay!) It was about noonish, so we decided to get Panda and other fast food from that upper level of citywalk. Trevor got some baos from the bao bun place:

They were good, but small. He ended up getting some Panda Express too.

I was definitely a bit tired, and ready to head over to Disney where I felt more comfortable and knew better what was happening and what to do, etc. I may have rushed us to finish a bit, but we finished up at 12:30ish and headed back over to the hotel.

We picked up our bags from Bell Services and then called an UberXL for all of us + our bags. Thad and Erika were staying at the Swan, but I like Disney so we were planning to stay onsite - originally Beach Club but turned into Boardwalk thanks to a friend who let us rent their confirmed reservation. But rather than do two ubers, we figured we'd take one uber to the Swan and then go from there.

We got lucky with an uber right away- he dropped someone off and we hopped right in. The drive over wasn't too bad, though it was sunny, and when Trevor is a passenger in a car on a sunny day, he falls asleep. Add in theme park exhaustion...

Sleepy Trevor! (there's a carryon size suitcase between us--that's what my arm is on).

Also this uber had music videos playing on the screen the whole time, which was interesting. Never seen the full music video for Miley Cyrus's "Wrecking Ball" before. But then we were passing under this arch and I know I have problems cause I was very much like "YAY we MADE IT!"

Like legit, just felt so much more comfortable and everything. Love it.

We made it over to the Swan and got Thad and Erika checked in and dropped their bags in their room (they had a view of the Dolphin). Then we figured we'd all walk over to the Boardwalk and get us checked in, and then Thad and Erika would be able to see how to get over to the Boardwalk, etc.

the Boardwalk!!

We love the Boardwalk so much, no joke. And it wasn't too hot - just nice and a little bit breezy...it was a nice walk.

We got checked in and added Thad and Erika to the room so we wouldn't have to worry about anything with lightning lanes or extra magic hours or anything, and even though it was only 2 pm our room was ready! So off we went.

Our lovely room!

Seriously, I know this is dumb, but I just was so much more at home and relaxed even just being here at the Boardwalk. I know that's just familiarity (like I'm more familiar with DisneyWorld) and probably just in my head a bit, but I was really pleased to be over at Disney now.

Anyways, I'm going to stop here - next time I'll do the room tour!

 

[MinnieFan4ever]

Nope, I totally get it. Whenever we do a split stay between Universal and Disney, I feel the same way. Once I’m on Disney property I feel so much more relaxed. Which is strange to me because the park experience with express pass is so much easier than Genie +.

 

[Araminta18]

Nope, I totally get it. Whenever we do a split stay between Universal and Disney, I feel the same way. Once I’m on Disney property I feel so much more relaxed. Which is strange to me because the park experience with express pass is so much easier than Genie +.

Oh good, glad it's not just me! And you're right - express is def easier than Genie+ but for whatever reason, more relaxed at Disney.

 

[Dashzap]

Icees are a great snack. ​

They are. My absolute favorite are the lingonberry Icees at IKEA.